Style Me May: Week Four-and-a-Bit

Friday, June 01, 2012

And just like that, Style Me May is officially over. Time to reflect on how it went. A cursory glance reveals that it went the way of pretty much every other blog-related project I'veeverundertaken, including the blog itself: it started well, gathered momentum, got a bit too intense, disappeared completely, then wobbled back towards a healthy-ish balance of quality, quantity and sanity.

(There's probably an uncomfortably strong argument for extrapolating this pattern to everything I've ever taken up in my whole life, but luckily for all of us I'm going to try and resist that urge.)

In common with every project of its kind, my Style Me May attempt kicked off in a blaze of enthusiasm. A sorry void had opened up in my life, excavated by a thumping boredom and fast filling up with worry and gloom. I needed a distraction, and Style Me May was it. I was going to fill that void with scarves and belts and carefully clashing prints! I was enthused! I was excited! I was styin' me some May like nobody's business!

By Week Two, the over-achiever in me was kicking into high gear. A collection of crap pictures taken on a phone in a poorly-lit corporate bathroom was no longer going to cut it. Out came the fancy(ish) camera. I started planning each day's outfit in advance, determined not just to fulfil the brief but to crush it with the force of my own awesomeness (I had lofty ambitions). I even photoshopped myself into a San Francisco street scene, for fuck's sake.

It wasn't exactly sustainable.

By Week Three I was flagging. I still wanted to do every challenge, but I was struggling to keep up and beginning to feel the (admittedly self-imposed) pressure. Something had to give, and that something was words. I had none. It was taking all of my reserves, both creative and temporal, just to throw on a decades-old Brown t-shirt and call myself preppy. There was no doubt about it; I was suffering from blogging burnout (and not for the first time).

But this time, instead of retreating into nothingness, I took control. I re-evaluated. I culled the list. Dressing head to toe in black on the sunniest day of the year so far? No thanks. Doing something weird with a hairclip just to try and contort my stubborn pixie crop into 'a new hairstyle'? Actually, I'd rather not. But stringing all my pearls together into one humongous pearl party? Sure! An excuse to wear my most favourite thing ever, a beautiful 1937 heirloom ring passed from my nana to my mum to me? I'll take that!

And so I hopped, skipped and jumped my way to June. What did I learn from this sartorial experiment? I was reminded, again, that overstretching myself never pays off in the long run. (Yes, three weeks counts as the long run, ok?) I learned, again, that quality trumps quantity, always, in everything. Except maybe when it comes to jewellery-based parties. And I found out that you can pretty much get away with wearing anything to work, as long as you wear it with sass and a nice belt.

In the end, I'm calling it a success.

So tell me, did anyone make it to the end of the month? Did anyone make it to the end of this post? And, most importantly, what's your favourite outfit from the month? I'm a wee bit obsessed with the neon birds, and rather enjoying Fin's straw-hat-and-windrunner combo...